Jurors’ Comments for the Quebec Writer's Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature About Desperate Freedom, the jurors wrote: Desperate Freedom explores the lives of four teenagers trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, alienation and worthlessness. Cochrane many technical writing approaches to make this story memorable and socially relevant. She cleverly juxtaposes the nature of the characters and the setting. The most interesting feature is the dream sequence at the end of the novel: this surreal scene conjures up two pictures, one of death and closure and another of hope and a new beginning.